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      Chapter One: The Past Never Ceases To Haunt Us

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         I oft wondered what death would look like when my time had come. Would he or she be

         an angel with black wings, walking towards me with a solemn face, and arms outstretched?

        Would the final beat of my heart resonate that call for the shadow of death to come forth and

        to draw me away to, I confess, I know not what? Lying in the chambers of my bed, the

        consumption had riddled my body weak, too frail to move, a boiling phlegm in the back

        of my throat that made my every swallow pure agony. As I tossed and turned in the

        drenched sheets wrapped and riddled in my four poster bed I caught a glimpse…just

        a glimpse of myself in the looking glass as I turned my head. It was there, in my very own

        eyes, that I saw death. I knew then and there that there was nothing to fear from

        life itself, no impending doom in our inevitable demise to try and shield ourselves from.

        For we, yes we, had our quietus already residing within ourselves. We had nothing to fear

        but our very selves and that, I confess, was the most terrifying concept I had ever happened

        upon in my life…

 

The funeral procession started on London Bridge, a solemn march of an ominous group in black crape band top hats, lace gloves and gent cloaks, rich black armageen scarves, black lace shawls and the heavy tread, step after step, of the sharp trudge of black boots tapping hard along the rough cobblestoned streets. A stately affair, no expense was neglected at fifty two pounds in its entirety, an amount that even the average worker of its day would earn less than half of in a year. Money was not an issue on this day or any day, but even this grand procession, a decadent affair of the ghastly theatre of macabre did not ease the grief that was being felt.

 

Gravely the party followed in silent reverence, two coffins being carried to their final resting place. A black hearse with four coaches, eight black horses with black feather plumes adorning their heads, slowly trotting a one mile journey to the final resting place. The twelve pall bearers and eight page boys, all dressed in black, their silence filling the streets with a haunting stillness as they respectfully made their way to the Southwark Burial Grounds of London.

 

With a sky of miserable grey that drizzled a light patter of rain, a cold wind blew harsh against his cheek as Lord Craven De’Montmoray marched alongside the dark hearse, refusing to take seat in a carriage with his other friends and family. No. He would walk that one mile in the freezing chill of a bleak and dreary day and he would feel the pain in each and every step. Every step reminding him of some arbitrary memory experienced with his sweet wife and darling child. Each step drawing them closer to their place of deathly slumber, and to his new reality. His new found isolation in the frigid and frosty world of his bleak existence. 

 

The procession was slow and Craven held a stern face. His heart was broken, but his expression remained as hardened as stone as he continued to march alongside his loved ones. For all the fineries he bestowed in their final procession, nothing would be good enough. Eliza laid in her finest cream dress, with pearls and crystals sewn throughout the Honiton lace like a blanket of stars. A dress Craven had made for her by the finest seamstress in London, for her thirty-fourth birthday. To her upmost delight, Eliza had eagerly put it on and immediately called for their carriage to take them to Hyde Park. So simple a pleasure, Eliza walked with him with a beam on her face through the grand entrance of the Apsley Gate, simply to be seen with her husband, hand in hand, walking through the lovely park adorned in her finery. Little did they know that Eliza's new dress would one day adorn her cold corpse.

 

Craven’s daughter Mercy had been dressed in a pure white silk dress, a dress that had been her favourite, for she had confessed many a time that it was the perfect attire to twirl in, the material flowing out as she spun in circles, merry until she collapsed into a pile of dizzy laughter. He bit his lip, suppressing a tear, as he recalled her little body laid out in the coffin, her hair a mop of brown curls perfectly laid out on the white silk pillow, like a beautiful porcelain doll. A necklace of freshwater pearls adorned the child’s neck, the ones she loved to wear when Eliza let her play with her jewellery. Two beautiful creatures, they now laid in their coffins in a blissful slumber.

 

Craven knew no amount of frippery or regalia, with the finest black velvet lined coffins, or largest feathers and red roses decorating the top of the hearse would do justice. His wife and child were dead, and there was no comfort, and no respite from the torment he was feeling. In his heart and in his soul he was an empty canvas. Blank and desperate, falling into that abyss of desolation. His wife Eliza and his daughter Mercy, both had taken from him from a bought of consumption that had riddled their household in the previous month. Their deaths were his death, as he stood there numb to the world around him. He too had been sick, pulled by the grasping hands of the illness towards his own demise. Yet somehow, amongst those rank sweat stained sheets and desperate cries begging for his own death, somehow he had managed to survive. Why? Why would life be so cruel as to take away the two most important people in his life, and yet let him live?

 

As the procession reached the graveyard, the pastor made a small speech. He spoke of their souls, pure and innocent beings that were taken by God into heaven. The solemn nods from friends and family, the tears that fell into the black handkerchiefs held close to their cheeks. They all agreed Eliza and Mercy were in a better place now, and the angels had them in their loving embrace. A better place. A happier place. With a clenched jaw, Craven stared coldly at the ground and bitterly took in the words with gut wrenching reproach. Eliza and Mercy had already been in that better place, with him. Like a cruel and troublesome dryad of wickedness, God had stolen them away. Curse him, thought Craven, and damn his wickedness.

 

With a soft hand on his shoulder, Craven turned to see the pastor with a sad, albeit encouraging, smile.

 

‘It is time.’ he informed the lord.

 

With the two white roses clutched tight in his hand, Craven walked into the stone vault, a hallowed chamber recently created for the family he once had. The lord placed one rose on each of the tombs. One wooden coffin large, six foot at least, exposed as it lay in the stone capsule, while the other a small wooden coffin, four foot at most, that lay in stone beside the other. Dying blooms for mercy and charity to the dead; his final miserable offering to the two loves of his life, now laying cold in their stone caskets.

 

Not a tear fell from his eyes, his face stone cold and his jaw clenched hard as he looked upon their fine elm coffins. Craven envisioned them lying neatly in their lined encasings, ruffled with the very best crape and mattress, as he had previously witnessed before the procession on the final viewing. With black nails and drape, and lead plate cherubim handles, their coffins were laid to rest in the vault, sealed with stone to lay deathly cold on the finest satin pillows.

 

Were mortals so foolish as to lavish the dead with decadence they would never know of and never see?

 

Of course they were…

 

With eyes black as midnight, dark as the waistcoat he was wearing over his black shirt and crisp white cravat, his long black hair pulled neatly back into a low ponytail that rested to the middle of his shoulder blades. The lord’s face was deathly white, as was the rest of his skin, a cold shiver across his flesh that no warmth could ever take away. Craven was a man oft described with fine features and a handsome face, although on this day of days it was miserable and long, a deathly hollow look of despair that a man holds when he has lost everything. The look of sadness. The look misery. The look of despair.

 

Their tomb inscriptions were simple, Eliza’s read;

 

Here lies Eliza Beth De’Montmoray, 1798-1836

Loving mother to Mercy, and dearest wife to Craven.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

 

 

Mercy’s simply read;

 

Here lies Mercy Bonne De’Montmoray, 1830-1836

Dearly beloved daughter of Craven and Eliza.

Blessed are those taken so young, for so special are they that God needs them in heaven.

 

 

As the painful hours dragged by, one by one, friends and family left the graveyard with gentle clasps on his arm and tender kisses on his cheek. Soft murmurings of what a terrible set of circumstances that could lead to such a fate. O’ tempest of the fates, how it mocks us cruelly. When we find ourselves in the green fields of spring, what wicked finger points to us and says ‘Ah-hah! You will feel my wrath! Your smiles I will turn to tormented cries of woe and despair. Yes you, you I say! You, in your joyful disposition, displeases me ever so much and now will be taken away!' 

 

The happy life of Lord Craven De’Montmoray had now been stolen, and although he was not lying in that vault himself, he wished that he was...ever so dearly.

 

'All shall fade and so too will I,' he murmured sadly to himself 'and yet I refuse to say goodbye on this days of days. Neither God nor the Devil can make me accept what has happened. I curse them for taking you and leaving me here, a wretched being neither living nor dying. In my damnation, I am already dead.'

 

All that he loved, and all that he held dear was now encased in stone, their sweet heads lying on the finest pillows money could buy, their bodies nestled amongst the best silk encasing. Yet what was the comfort in all this finery and beauty, when the ugly truth was their sweet faces…the beautiful bodies of who Eliza and Mercy once were, were now rotting in their elm cases. Discomposed and left to ruin, their bodies would be riddled with worms, their flesh left to putrefaction. His wife and daughter were no more and their memory in time would fade as did everything that remained far from sight. What cruel life would let two beautiful souls thrive and flourish only to be struck down with death and disease at such an early age? What cruel life allows such horrid things to occur?

 

Craven did not have the answers to these questions, but he knew one thing. Life was a merciless mockery of the human condition. There was no compassion and love in God, if he even did exist. For Craven saw his wife and child writhe in agony and die in the most horrid of ways. If that was what God permitted to happen to his flock, Craven De’Montmoray wanted no part of it. And on his death, Craven would happily go to the Devil; for surely there was more compassion in the loving arms of the enemy of his most loathed enemy.

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